Professor Keane 'Remoteness' Comment Rejected
The suggestion by National Cancer Control Director, Professor Tom Keane that it might be difficult to maintain the necessary staff in a cancer centre of excellence North of the Dublin/Galway line was described today, Wednesday, July 2nd as further evidence of his, and the HSE’s remoteness from the realities which face cancer patients in much of the northern half of the country.
This was stated by Independent MEP Marian Harkin when she slammed the reference by Professor Keane in a radio interview to the difficulty of staffing a centre in Ireland and equating that problem with the remote areas of northern Canada. “Professor Keane should not attempt to equate Fort Stewart in Donegal with Fort Nelson in British Columbia as if their populations were similar and the distance to cancer treatment centres likely to attract and retain staff in anything like the same league. ‘Remote’ Sligo General Hospital had no problem in attracting and retaining the expert staff which provided such excellent diagnostic and surgical services and Dr. Keane’s suggestions of such difficulties in any part of Ireland were simply ludicrous, she said.
The bias in government policy which militated against the best possible outcomes for cancer patients in the North West was absolutely discriminatory which was exemplified by the failure to provide the type of breast screening facilities in the North West which Professor Keane said existed for the past 20 years in Canada, she said.
“The latest evidence of Government discrimination in cancer services is that Breastcheck, which was promised to women in the North West in 2001, 2003, 2005 and, finally, Autumn 2007, will not now reach all parts of the country until March 2010”, she said. That situation meant that if the diagnostic facilities closed in Sligo General Hospital at the end of the current year, women in Sligo and Donegal would have no access whatsoever to breast screening, she said.
“I accept that Professor Keane is only implementing Government policy but in supporting it he should only make valid comparisons between Ireland and Canada and acknowledge that the best outcome for cancer patients is connected to the level of stress involved for them in the entire diagnostic, surgical and recovery elements of their trauma”, Marian Harkin MEP said.
